Ebony Wings: Chapter 18
Christopher "Hey." Christopher called out to the girl closest to the entrance of the forge. "Hey!" The girl looked and pulled her welding mask off. "Yes?" "Hey uhhm-" Christopher looked around. "Is Aaron in there somewhere?" "Yes he is. Who are you?" "I'm Christopher. Aaron's friend." He replied. "He called me here." "Alright then. He's inside, I'll take you to him." The daugther of Hephaestus eyed Theresa weirdly. "Your girlfriend probably shouldn't come in here, not with what she's wearing." Christopher turned to look at his roommate. Holy, she had probably worn those clothes just smite him. If he were any lesser man, he wouldn't have been able to hold himself back from touching her or kissing her. His head was still in turmoil because of her. He hadn't slept the entire night, insomnia and teenage fantasies were a nasty combination. "Christopher?" Theresa waved her hand in front of him. "Yohoo, anyone home?" "Sorry. What were you saying?" "You can go ahead and meet Aaron, I can wait outside." She replied. "Are you sure?" Christopher rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb, he was still holding her hand from just now. "Yeah." She smiled at him. "I'll be fine. Just hurry up." "Okay then." Christopher pulled away from her reluctantly. "I'm Nyssa by the way." The daughter of Hephaestus introduced herself. "Nice to meet you Nyssa." He smiled at her. The forge was a mass of metal, heat and smoke. Several gruff and tall looking boys and girls were using machines or molding metal with their hammers or hands. "You've never been in a forge have you?" She asked him. "Can't say I have, not much of these back home." "Well, I'll give you a mini tour." Nyssa pointed at the machine that one of her siblings pulled out a hot blade from. "We're tempering that blade. By heating and cooling metal, we increase it's hardness." "I see." "That's a buffing machine, that's where we make the blades look nice." She pointed at a machine with a spinning wheel placed vertically on each side of the machine. "Power Hammer, it helps us out with actually hammering and there's the belt grinner." "You know, for Ancient Greek Demigods, you sure use modern machines to forge weapons." Christopher noted. "Well, we would take weeks to actually forge weapons if we were to do it as the Ancient Greeks." Nyssa smiled. "Aaron's at that work station by the way." "Alright, thanks Nyssa." I smiled at her and waved goodbye. Aaron (at least Christopher assumed it was Aaron from his size) was holding down a blade while another one of his siblings was hammering the blade down. Christopher waited patiently from them to finish. They look like they were hammering a hole into the base of a sword. Honestly, the looked like they were making some kind of fantasy sword. Aaron looked up from the workstation and noticed Christopher. The boy smiled and said something to his brother before walking towards Christopher. "Hey, you should've just waited outside and asked someone to call me out." The blacksmith smiled. Christopher shrugged. "I was impatient." Aaron chuckled. "Alright then. Follow me to my station." Christopher followed Aaron a bit further into the forge, finally reaching a table labelled 'Aaron'. "Nice collection." Christopher grabbed a crossbow from one of the shelves "You made all of this?" "Yeah. I'm the master weaponsmith here. Horrible at making anything mechanical, but at least I can make an axe that can cleave someone's head off." "Doesn't seem that bad." Christopher grabbed another weapon. A balisong or butterfly knife, sort of like a switchblade though it's origins were in the south-east of Asia. He flipped it open and held it in a ice-pick grip like he was used to. It had been such a long time since he held a knife, honestly he should probably just use one instead of his sword. "Well seeing as some of the Children of Hephaestus have made a bronze dragon, me making sharpened sheets of metal isn't really amazing." "Well if you put it that way." Christopher chuckled, grabbing another knife in favour of a sickle-like knife with a ring at the end. A Kerambit, the blade was probably only as long as a finger. Another weapon made in south-east asia. "You have a lot of weapons that are more than just Greek don't ya?" "Yeah, I like to experiment a lot." Aaron eyed the Kerambit in Christopher's hand suspicious. "You wield that weapon as if you've used to hold one." Christopher spun the Kerambit using the ring around one of his fingers. "Let's just say 'back at home' is pretty close to where this thing originated from." Aaron scratched his chin. "Okay then." "So, what did you want me for?" Christopher put the Kerambit back. "Oh right." Aaron walked over to one of his shelves. "You don't like using a shield and I can see you're a better fighter with your fist than a sword, so I created something to help you with that." Aaron grabbed a gauntlet from the shelf and handed it to Christopher. "The bracer is a thick piece of metal to block strikes; though you should this dodge some of the more powerful attacks. The knuckles are covered and studded, so punching someone is going to hurt." Aaron started explaining. "Now the articulation in the fingers is something I took a long time to do. You don't have the fun movement of your fingers, meaning you can't open up your palm fully, but you can still grab things." "Damn." Christopher smiled. "This is- Thank you. I don't know what to say. I can't believe you made this for me." The engraved on the bracer of the gauntlet was a picture of bird with it's claws ready to strike. The metal was still made of Celestial Bronze but it looked like Aaron had painted the thing with a slight tint of blackish-blue. "Well? Put it on, try it out." Aaron smiled. Christopher slid the gauntlet on like a glove, covering the leather around his forearm and then tying up the strings over the leather. He moved his fingers around to test it. "I never realised how light Celestial Bronze was, you know, in comparison to my sword." "Where did you get that sword anyway?" Aaron asked. "Silver isn't a metal we use here." "Really? Because I found it inside one of the weapon closets." "If it was forged here, it wasn't forged by one of us." Aaron confirmed. "Say, can I take a look at it sometime? You know, just to see the craftsmanship." "Yeah sure-" "Christopher?" Nyssa suddenly appeared behind them. Her tone was urgent. "Yes?" "Your girlfriend. She- just get out there." Nyssa begged, turning away and running. Christopher was running before his head recognised the words. He reached the entrance of the forge and found the problem. Gorilla-pet and Broken-Nose had found Theresa. "You're showing a lot of skin today huh Unclaimed?" Gorilla-Pet was holding Theresa by the stomach as she desperately tried to break free. "I never noticed it before, but you're pretty hot huh?" Broken-Nose touched the skin of Theresa's collarbones. "Your rack is pretty nice too." Christopher was already running before Broken-Nose had finished touching her. He kicked Broken-Nose's feet from under him with a leg sweep and he fell to the floor hard. Gorilla-pet immediately recognised the threat and let Theresa go, trying to kick Christopher. He grabbed the foot and kicked the other foot away and Gorilla-Pet came crashing down to the floor. Christopher jumped up and grabbed Theresa, putting her behind him. "You okay?" Christopher asked. "Yeah. Just-" Theresa covered her chest. "Just violated." Christopher grit his teeth. He couldn't like, he was mad, really mad. "Stay behind me okay?" Christopher ordered as the two stood up. "You again?" Gorilla-Pet complained. "Yeah? Well, don't complain if your going to be messing with Theresa." Christopher scowled. Broken-Nose struck out as he was distracted, kicking Christopher in the gut. Chris gasped for breath as Gorilla-Pet struck with another fist, connecting with his face. Christopher staggered back, spitting out some blood. "You hit like a wuss." Gorilla-Pet frowned and struck again. Christopher caught the arm, kneeling and striking with the palm of his hand right into Gorilla-Pet's chin and then sweeping off his feet, causing him to fall like a sack of potatoes. Broken-Nose seemed to be less eager to fight now, he struck with his gauntlet-fist which Christopher counter by striking Broken-Nose's ribs before the fist could connect. As Broken-Nose staggered from the blow, Christopher launched himself at him, one leg over his chest and the other at the back of the knees, twisting his body as he fell in a scissor-kick take down. On the ground, Christopher grabbed his opponents arm and twisted his wrist in a lock. Gorilla-Pet was standing up now and looked like he was going to strike again. "You move and I break his arm." Christopher threatened. To reinforce his point, Christopher struck out pulled backwards Broken-Nose's arm making the boy cry out in pain. Gorilla-Pet scowled at backed off and Christopher got off his opponent. Broken-Nose got up, clutching his shoulder. Gorilla-Pet stepped forward to support his brother. "Hey what's going on here?" Silena and her brother, Mike, jogged up to the crowd that had gathered. "Jeremy! Gideon! I thought not to mess with them again-" Silena stopped as she noticed the hunched over Broken-Nose/Jeremy. "Hey, he beat us up." Gorilla-Pet/Gideon complained. "Well you shouldn't have picked a fight." Mike frowned at them. Gorilla-Pet stepped forward, letting his brother go. Zed suddenly appeared from the crowd and placed a hand on his chest. "Whoa there little brother, watch where you step." Little Brother? Zed was older than the tall and bulky Gorilla-Pet? "Get out of my way you yellow fu-" "Watch your words Little Brother." Zed threatened, his tone taking a much more sinister one. "Don't think just because your family that I won't make you be sorry for you words." Zed shoved the boy. "Now get back to the cabin and get someone to look at Jeremy's shoulder." Gorilla-Pet frowned and shouldered his brother, both of them walking away. "Alright, everyone out! Nothing to see here!" Silena annouced to the crowd. "You heard what she said." Mike reinforced. The crowd took a while to disperse. Christopher didn't pay attention to them, he was busy with Theresa. "You okay?" Christopher asked her, wrapping his arms around her waist. "Yeah." She touched his cheek and he winced. "You're hurt." "I'm fine." Christopher urged. His fists were clenched hard, still mad that they had touched her that way. "Hey." Theresa reached for his hands, peeling them open and sliding her fingers into his his. "I'm okay, they didn't hurt me. You're hurt." She held up his right-unarmoured arm, his knuckles were bruised and swollen. "Here." Aaron appeared from the forge. "First aid kit." "Thank you." Theresa took the First-aid kit and forced him to sit down. She carefully undid the straps of his gauntlet and pulled the gauntlet off. She proceeded to rub some cream on his swollen knuckles and cheek. She wrapped his knuckles with gauze and then a bandage. "There." She proceeded to kiss him on the cheek. "That's for the swollen cheek." "How about one for the lips?" Christopher smirked. "Maybe later." Theresa promised. Christopher saw from the corner of his eyes, Silena jumping and clapping to herself. Then he realised that the entire thing had unfolded in front of his friends. He got to his feet. "Hey guys." "Okay first off." Zed said. "You just fought two guys. Where did you learn those moves?" "Back home. I learned Silat, the martial arts we have there, since I was 7." Christopher answered. "Dang." Mike smiled. "You're pretty good." Aaron slapped Christopher on the back. "Ow!" "Glad to see you put your weapon to good use." Aaron smiled at him. "Thanks." Christopher rubbed his back, stepping away from him. Silena along the way dragged Theresa aside and Mike started talking to Aaron about weapons. Christopher was glad the attention was pulled away from him. Now that the adrealine had run out, his knuckles and cheek was starting to hurt. Zed suddenly appeared beside him while Christopher was wincing about his knuckles. "You were there the entire time weren't you? Why didn't you stop it?" Christopher frowned at him. "Because I wanted to see how good you were, I was going to stop it once things got ugly. Luckily I didn't have to do that." "Jerk." Zed continued to grin a suspicious grin. "What?" "I thinking that capture the flag tomorrow is going to be interesting." Zed smiled. Ebony Wings Main Page <---Previous Chapter [[Ebony Wings: Chapter 19|Next Chapter--->]] For the stronger the Light; the thicker the shadows that fall. 20:04, September 1, 2014 (UTC) Category:Archie-Son of Poseidon Category:Chapter Page Category:Fallen Angel Series(Remake)